The Force Awakens in HP’s Star Wars Special Edition Notebook

HP has announced a special edition notebook that focuses on characters from the original trilogy, just in time for the new Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens movie. This way, all Star Wars fans will be happy, regardless which part of the franchise they prefer.

Yesterday, Microsoft unveiled its first notebook, which might appeal to businessmen and such. Today, it’s HP’s turn to show its muscles, and considering the chord it struck with the Star Wars Special Edition notebook, geeks might find this device far more attractive than an industrial-looking laptop.

Starting from the idea that everything that Star Wars fans own needs to look and sound like something from George Lucas’ space saga, HP partnered up with Disney and created a special edition Pavilion notebook. Thinking that the same effect could have been achieved with some laptop decals is wrong, as HP’s device lives and breathes Star Wars through all of its pores.

To make it look as appealing as possible, HP covered the lid, the keyboard and everything in-between with Star Wars memorabilia. Not only did the manufacturer write “Galactic Empire” on the hinge using the Aurebush font, but it also preloaded this font for your own use.

The lid is dominated by one of the greatest villains in movie history (the other one being HAL-9000, obviously), Darth Vader, and the Dark Side of the Force can be felt when touching the matching wireless mouse.

Since HP has had access to the Star Wars archives prior to creating this notebook, the company has included more than 1,100 on the device’s storage. Owners of this laptop will be delighted to find concept art, classic photos, behind-the-scenes images, artwork, costume and set designs, storyboards and audio selections.

To top all that, users will get to hear R2-D2 whistling whenever they insert a flash drive into any of the notebook’s USB ports. Of course, you can switch to a different theme with lightsaber sounds, if you prefer those more. The whole thing wouldn’t have been complete without Darth Vader’s mobile megastructure, the Death Star, so that is taking the place of the Recycle Bin (Kenobi?) on the desktop.

Everything about this notebook was designed to look like it rather belonged on the Star Wars set. Even the styrofoam the notebook is delivered in was custom-molded to resemble Darth Vader’s TIE Advanced x1.

The technical specs aren’t to be neglected, either. HP’s Star Wars Special Edition Pavilion notebook is powered by either a Skylake Core i5 or i7 CPU, up to 12GB of RAM, and up to 2TB of internal storage. The Intel HD Graphics 520 and NVidia Geforce 940M7 GPUs will ensure a satisfactory gaming experience on the 15.6-inch display, while the B&O Play tuned speakers will make every sound effect spectacular.

HP will start taking pre-orders for the Star Wars Special Edition notebook on October 8, and the devices should start shipping one month later, on November 8. Depending on the configuration, the notebook costs $699 or more, while the wireless mouse and sleeve go for $39.99 each.